Estonia sets up “data embassy” in Luxembourg

Estonia is on track to start storing government data in a “data embassy” in Luxembourg, it was reported.

The Luxembourg data centre will safeguard the information “vital” to the functioning of the state, according to the Estonian Public Broadcasting report.

Data from ten “priority databases” will be stored in Luxembourg, including the information system of the Estonian treasury, the pensions insurance and business registers, and the identity documents database, among others.

Storing data in another European Union member state will make it harder to launch an attack on a country’s systems, the report said. Furthermore, the physical location of the data centre’s servers will “remain secret”.

There will be more data embassies to come, the report said, as Estonia heavily depends on its neighbours for its economy. Attackers could potentially target Estonia’s supply chains – making regional cooperation “vital” for the country.

“If something should happen to the data centres here or they can’t be accessed, then this data is still available somewhere outside Estonia,” Mikk Lellsaar, head of the state cloud department at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, was quoted by the Eesti Päevaleht newspaper as saying.

Lellsaar also said that he data embassies will add a layer of security and digital resistance to Estonia’s data structure.

It is hoped that if all goes well, the embassy could “go live” by the end of this year, according to the report.